Challenges

Life science companies will continue to find new ways for decreasing costs, streamlining operations and improving value. Companies will maintain focus on therapies, technologies and investments that capitalize on their core business strengths, whether through partnerships or by divesting underperforming units. Commercialization and regulatory hurdles will remain a primary concern, particularly as generic and biologic drugs further penetrate world markets and governments and payers push for lower prices. A top priority for many life science companies is how to mitigate these challenges, while also proving the value of their therapies to payers and patients.

In short, industry consolidations, emerging markets expansion, innovative, orphan and specialty drugs, investment in R&D, big data and analytics, technology, globalization, supply chain agility and pricing pressures are some of the challenges this industry faces.

In this context, life sciences and health care companies compete globally for increasingly scarce technical and professional skills. Rapid expansion into new markets is challenging to build global workforce capabilities. In order to establish a robust talent pipeline, companies must understand skills gaps today and into the future; to identify where key skills are located, where they are going, and how to source or locate talent hubs; to investigate new skill pools; to recognize the length of time needed to develop key skill sets; to foster a culture that encourages continuous learning.